I pretty much knew these last few days would be zingers and I wasn't wrong. Whenever you walk into your old life and look around and walk back out it's always a little gut wrenching. We did a lot of that this past weekend. The house* in the Paris 'burbs was empty and new renters were coming so we were forced to make a quick trip up north to check it out and prepare it for the new people arriving three days later. We couldn't put it off any longer.
Just for the record I was right in my evaluation of the first renter and his ego. I never got a chance to blog about it; but he didn't pay the rent much and left behind some serious messes and a mailbox full of recommended letters. Call it women's instict but we will have to pay to have the brand new living room floor resanded because his little dog peed everywhere and left stains on the floor and even on the wall. Did I mention how much I hate renting out this house. If we could sell it and get out from it with our shirts partially intact I would do it in a heartbeat but no lender can seem to help us find a way out...unfortunately.
Otherwise it's a very pretty house and I'm still a proud parent when I walk through and see all the work we did. Scraped knuckles, elboow grease, paint plastered in hair, it was an extremely rough three years where the payoff was in pure beauty. I was very relieved that the previous renter didn't paint the doors or woodwork, whew!, and that they pretty much left everything as was. That was a good point in their favor. The new renters seem a bit fussier and had a list of projects that they wanted done before moving in, odd because we had five people stop and ask about renting the house just in the short time we were there, desperate people asking if they had any chance to get in. We did one or two things on the list but stopped short of painting the pipes in the hallway and things like that. The old plumbing pipes I find really interesting, --from turn of the century and stamped with a scrolled GDF logo--so I'd purposely taken the old paint off and left them bare. Projects like that freaked me out a bit. Hopefully they won't cancel 19 hours of laborous scraping and polishing and paint them all white! You see why I'd love to just sell it.
We saw old neighbors and had way too many aperos and dinners and wished very fleetingly that we could move back. I'd had it out with the Savoie Dragon Lady right before we left from home for this trip so I was feeling a bit dejected and unneighborly and lets face it vunerable. It was a much needed dose of friendliness. But as we all know you can't step twice in the same river, the river and you change so it never works. It was kind of like that. The town seemed suddenly small; the people were still fabulous and nice but the atmosphere seemed stale and I quickly noted that nobody got out and walked much or participated in many activities. I remembered being like that when we lived there. I was a wallflower in house slippers puttering monotonously about my life, internalized. It was probably the right moment for it because Charlotte was just a baby, but it couldn't have lasted much longer and it left its mark on my personal life.
After leaving this house for the last time three years ago we moved to China and Seb and I seperated and set about the process of filing for divorce. It was a bittersweet moment to step back inside and see the scars of our marriage all over the place. We slept in sleeping bags on the floor and I tossed and turned reliving all those moments the four days we were there. It was such a mix of feelings handing the keys over to the agency to rent the house to new people. I wished we were handing it over to new owners instead. It's almost like that house and holding on to it is like holding onto a moment where everything wasn't quite working. We came home, brim sloshing with angst and stepped onto the doorstep of here our little Savoie house bought when we were newlyweds, childless and terribly optimistic. It has a lighter feel and Dragon Lady neighbor aside it is a happy place with a good history. As difficult as the four day weekend was it helped put a perspective on everything.
*(if you care to read about this house's history and how we redid it go to Labels in the sidebar and link to This Old House 2)
Showing posts with label this old house 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this old house 2. Show all posts
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Thursday, March 03, 2011
A finished house
We still haven't left. Yep still here. We have visa issues,...one of us is American, one is Mexican, and two are French. It's a good recipe for disaster if you're asking a third party to do your paperwork for you. We should leave in another week or so.
I wanted to share a few photos of our Paris house, finished. Unfortunately I didn't get very many pictures of the whole project. Our finished bedroom came together just as the new renter was moving his things in and we didn't get any photos, but it turned out very nice and looked a lot like my inspiration photo (below) which should give you an idea at least of what it would have looked like. I didn't get to do the rust colored wall I wanted to do because the new renter wanted it left all white. I almost went ahead and did it anyway so I could have the satisfaction of seeing it but there wasn't time. It just doesn't look good white--too bachelor pad-ish.
I wanted to share a few photos of our Paris house, finished. Unfortunately I didn't get very many pictures of the whole project. Our finished bedroom came together just as the new renter was moving his things in and we didn't get any photos, but it turned out very nice and looked a lot like my inspiration photo (below) which should give you an idea at least of what it would have looked like. I didn't get to do the rust colored wall I wanted to do because the new renter wanted it left all white. I almost went ahead and did it anyway so I could have the satisfaction of seeing it but there wasn't time. It just doesn't look good white--too bachelor pad-ish.
I'm not sure when we'll see the house again. It's in the hands of an agent so that if this renter leaves the agency will simply find someone else and we won't be involved. One day I'll get pictures and maybe I can run in and paint the walls so I can see what it would look like.
I was really happy with the house at the end. It was such a personal space, so much of us inside. The amount of work we did to that place in two years was insane and I just wish we could have enjoyed it a bit longer, especially as over budgeted as we were. Oh well, time to move forward and maybe start a new project in a few years and sell that one. For the next three years at least we'll be enjoying not renovating. I'm not even sure if that's possible but we'll give it a try. Maybe in China our passion will turn to other things like cooking or eating or good health! I know homeschooling will be a big interest and I'm planning on taking some design classes to pursue that a bit more. Lots to look forward to in this next phase of life !
I finished stripping the last door frame just before we handed over the keys, I will use the heat gun on anyone who paints over these doors!!
inside Charlotte's room--apparently the new renters teenage daughters fought between them to have this bedroom but seb and I have always preferred the results of the other room, S's room, which is much nicer with it's big beams and high ceilings...we always felt charlotte was getting the worst of the two rooms but apparently not!
floors sanded...
and at last lasured , check!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Almost gone
Well here we are just a few short weeks away before we leave. Both houses are officially rented, "whew" . It's such a relief to tie up all the loose ends. These last few weeks with finishing up our Paris house has been exhausting. We were a little surprised that the first person to see the house wanted it and wanted it fast. They were a couple who dropped in right before Christmas and honestly I thought they hated the house by all the husband's snarky comments, but it turns out I was wrong. He's egocentric as they come, a professional sport instructor in a very snooty sport. I got the bad energy vibe off of him, flashing red lights, sirens-- the works, but Seb was too nervous to listen to me. He just wants the house rented as soon as possible so we wouldn't be stuck, which I could understand but I still think it might have been wise to choose the person better so as not to be stuck worse a lot later. I relented against my better judgement, or should I say against feminine instinct--usally a very bad idea. So they're in the house and there isn't much else to say. I hope they just stay quiet, pay the rent and don't wreck the house. So far they're doing one of the three. Complaining seems to be a sport that the new renter also teaches. We have to replace the basement's back door and put in an electronic gate before April *rolling eyes* He told us all this after we signed the rental agreement papers which I thought already showed a lot of underhandedness. When we buy and renovate these old houses I never dream that one day we will rent them. Renting out an old place is just trouble because honestly he can pick the house apart every month if he really wants to. There are a lot of problems in a hundred year old house and he just didn't seem like the type to overlook squeeky door hinges and rooms with "character." My alarm bells we're going off for a reason.
The house looked really nice when we were finished and it was very hard not to feel like we were making a big mistake. I had light switches that worked everywhere and TWO bathrooms. My bedroom extension was completely finished with a modern shower and sink. It was a dream house! After two years of major MAJOR sacrifices and the worst marriage strain imaginable it was incredibly hard to just walk away last week and say "okay let's go, ASIA yay!" I guess maybe it's all the extra baggage of a mature adult that makes adventuring tough. It's the desire for security and nice things. I'm just going to muddle through it though and let the house and all that go. There damn well better be adventure on the horizon or I'm going to be really pissed off. And the light switches better work in our Shanghai apartment!
The Fisherman's house is only rented for a few months to someone we have close ties to. This is giving us time to come back to France this summer. After that we can evaluate things and decide if we want to rent it for a full three year bail or continue to rent it off season. I'm looking forward to summer break already. I think a French Alpine vacation will definitely be in high order after a few months in Asia adapting to expat life.
We haven't done much in the way of preparing our leaving with all the keys being passed and last minute painting (Mister Ego made us paint the living room a third time). I still have a list a mile long to cross off. I'm not even sure that I'll get through it in time. As I said before this is the difficult part of the moving, the details, the stress the waiting in line before the ride. It really bites.
This week I met an American on my street in TLB. She's really nice and I think we'll become friends. She's about my mom's age. I look forward to getting to know her better this summer. She's one of these really interesting international ladies, citizen of the world types that you can talk with for hours.
I'll do a picture post soon with photos of the finished Paris house. As if destiny wanted me to not dwell on it too much my camera battery died on my last visit to the house and I'd brought the wrong Canon charger. I could only take a few pictures.
I better run. I've got a few things to check off my list. brb!
The house looked really nice when we were finished and it was very hard not to feel like we were making a big mistake. I had light switches that worked everywhere and TWO bathrooms. My bedroom extension was completely finished with a modern shower and sink. It was a dream house! After two years of major MAJOR sacrifices and the worst marriage strain imaginable it was incredibly hard to just walk away last week and say "okay let's go, ASIA yay!" I guess maybe it's all the extra baggage of a mature adult that makes adventuring tough. It's the desire for security and nice things. I'm just going to muddle through it though and let the house and all that go. There damn well better be adventure on the horizon or I'm going to be really pissed off. And the light switches better work in our Shanghai apartment!
The Fisherman's house is only rented for a few months to someone we have close ties to. This is giving us time to come back to France this summer. After that we can evaluate things and decide if we want to rent it for a full three year bail or continue to rent it off season. I'm looking forward to summer break already. I think a French Alpine vacation will definitely be in high order after a few months in Asia adapting to expat life.
We haven't done much in the way of preparing our leaving with all the keys being passed and last minute painting (Mister Ego made us paint the living room a third time). I still have a list a mile long to cross off. I'm not even sure that I'll get through it in time. As I said before this is the difficult part of the moving, the details, the stress the waiting in line before the ride. It really bites.
This week I met an American on my street in TLB. She's really nice and I think we'll become friends. She's about my mom's age. I look forward to getting to know her better this summer. She's one of these really interesting international ladies, citizen of the world types that you can talk with for hours.
I'll do a picture post soon with photos of the finished Paris house. As if destiny wanted me to not dwell on it too much my camera battery died on my last visit to the house and I'd brought the wrong Canon charger. I could only take a few pictures.
I better run. I've got a few things to check off my list. brb!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The house tour
Whew!
I'm a bit tired so you'll have to excuse my little blog absences lately. I haven't had a moment to do much of anything what with all the painting of bathrooms and packing of books. There have also been school woes because Little S's teacher has been out sick and they've had no replacement for the last three days. Each morning we go, he isn't there, and we come back home. Each and every time. The problem is I also take our neighbor's girl to school, a little pistol of a thing, and I have her for the day too because her mother works. I don't mind having my own kids home but having someone else's child is somehow very tiring and puts a huge crimp in my day. She's gotten in to everything in the past few days! A while ago I went in and found that she'd filled Charlotte's play kitchen sink with water from the bathroom, yes and SPILLED it all over the place. Yesterday she had charlotte's hair accessories strewn everywhere and I keep finding broken barrettes and clips all through the house. She just one of those kids that gets in to stuff. I pray that the teacher shows up on Thursday. I am beginning to feel like a seriously underpaid nanny.
Our house it seems is rented which is good news. I'm relieved that it's over so fast. I didn't want to suffer through visits and have to clean every single minute. The person is actually the local woman who came by a few weeks back. It turns out despite appearances to the contrary, their living in a tiny apartment, they have the money to upgrade to a house in the country. We don't really care because we'll have insurance against non-payers and they will have to prove their income to the insurance company so there isn't any worry of them lying to us. It all has to be on paper. They're a really nice Muslim family of three with their own business which we think they plan to manage from the house. No problems for us--the house actually makes a nice business locale too.
My only issue was decorating because on her visit to the house she made a few comments about repainting and finishing the woodworking, namely something about a vert-pistache which made my scrunch my mouth up in shock. Remember that the entire house was vert-pistache when we moved in--horrid! I know she likes to paint and add color, probably part of the Tunisian culture--a colorful country, and also I see the array of curtains in her apartment from the street--blue, purple, yellow etc., so it's obvious to me she'll want a color palette in the house that looks like a crayola box. I had told Seb I'd prefer a couple who'd not change the house too much, I mean if we had a choice, but he's right I guess we can always repaint *sigh* and we can't really impose our tastes on them as long as they're paying our mortgage (or at least 75 percent of our mortgage). I had to be firm about her not finishing any wood work though. She wants to redo the wood on the inside of the downstairs doors because she said it looks unfinished. I explained it was a retro "look," something seen in many decorating magazines and but she seemed confused. But my friends that is a non-negotiable and I told her "I'm sorry we'll have to ask you not to touch the doors and put it in the contract." I've spent over a week of my life on those doors and I really like them. I don't want them touched. In short I think she isn't much into the old house aspect or the decorating aspect of our house at all, but they really needed a house and there isn't anything available in our little town so they're stuck with us. I'm happy with them though. They seem careful and serious and they don't have teenage boys, my big fear for my house because all my neighbors have teenage boys. I could just imagine them all becoming friends and "hanging out" at our house all the time when the parents were out, duuuuuude. No thanks.
We still have a lot of little things to patch up and fix--lots of last minute work to do as you can see in the pictures (click on the grid to enlarge them). The house though pleases me very much and I'm really sad that we can't enjoy the fruits of our labour for very long. It's too bad we can't take the place with us and just travel around with it. Someone I met today told me they'd viewed the house when it was for sale and had found it to be uninhabitable, but that they'd always loved the garden and the exterior so they'd seriously considered buying it. I said "well we've done a lot of work inside" and she looked curious and flat out asked me if she could come by for coffee one day to see it. I said "yes" because I want to see the shock in her face at how much it's changed. It's a sort of addiction and an affirmation that maybe we haven't been so nuts these past few years and we did make something out of nothing.
Okay well if you'll excuse me I have a three year old's birthday party to plan for tomorrow. Three! unbelievable.
I'm a bit tired so you'll have to excuse my little blog absences lately. I haven't had a moment to do much of anything what with all the painting of bathrooms and packing of books. There have also been school woes because Little S's teacher has been out sick and they've had no replacement for the last three days. Each morning we go, he isn't there, and we come back home. Each and every time. The problem is I also take our neighbor's girl to school, a little pistol of a thing, and I have her for the day too because her mother works. I don't mind having my own kids home but having someone else's child is somehow very tiring and puts a huge crimp in my day. She's gotten in to everything in the past few days! A while ago I went in and found that she'd filled Charlotte's play kitchen sink with water from the bathroom, yes and SPILLED it all over the place. Yesterday she had charlotte's hair accessories strewn everywhere and I keep finding broken barrettes and clips all through the house. She just one of those kids that gets in to stuff. I pray that the teacher shows up on Thursday. I am beginning to feel like a seriously underpaid nanny.
Our house it seems is rented which is good news. I'm relieved that it's over so fast. I didn't want to suffer through visits and have to clean every single minute. The person is actually the local woman who came by a few weeks back. It turns out despite appearances to the contrary, their living in a tiny apartment, they have the money to upgrade to a house in the country. We don't really care because we'll have insurance against non-payers and they will have to prove their income to the insurance company so there isn't any worry of them lying to us. It all has to be on paper. They're a really nice Muslim family of three with their own business which we think they plan to manage from the house. No problems for us--the house actually makes a nice business locale too.
My only issue was decorating because on her visit to the house she made a few comments about repainting and finishing the woodworking, namely something about a vert-pistache which made my scrunch my mouth up in shock. Remember that the entire house was vert-pistache when we moved in--horrid! I know she likes to paint and add color, probably part of the Tunisian culture--a colorful country, and also I see the array of curtains in her apartment from the street--blue, purple, yellow etc., so it's obvious to me she'll want a color palette in the house that looks like a crayola box. I had told Seb I'd prefer a couple who'd not change the house too much, I mean if we had a choice, but he's right I guess we can always repaint *sigh* and we can't really impose our tastes on them as long as they're paying our mortgage (or at least 75 percent of our mortgage). I had to be firm about her not finishing any wood work though. She wants to redo the wood on the inside of the downstairs doors because she said it looks unfinished. I explained it was a retro "look," something seen in many decorating magazines and but she seemed confused. But my friends that is a non-negotiable and I told her "I'm sorry we'll have to ask you not to touch the doors and put it in the contract." I've spent over a week of my life on those doors and I really like them. I don't want them touched. In short I think she isn't much into the old house aspect or the decorating aspect of our house at all, but they really needed a house and there isn't anything available in our little town so they're stuck with us. I'm happy with them though. They seem careful and serious and they don't have teenage boys, my big fear for my house because all my neighbors have teenage boys. I could just imagine them all becoming friends and "hanging out" at our house all the time when the parents were out, duuuuuude. No thanks.
We still have a lot of little things to patch up and fix--lots of last minute work to do as you can see in the pictures (click on the grid to enlarge them). The house though pleases me very much and I'm really sad that we can't enjoy the fruits of our labour for very long. It's too bad we can't take the place with us and just travel around with it. Someone I met today told me they'd viewed the house when it was for sale and had found it to be uninhabitable, but that they'd always loved the garden and the exterior so they'd seriously considered buying it. I said "well we've done a lot of work inside" and she looked curious and flat out asked me if she could come by for coffee one day to see it. I said "yes" because I want to see the shock in her face at how much it's changed. It's a sort of addiction and an affirmation that maybe we haven't been so nuts these past few years and we did make something out of nothing.
Okay well if you'll excuse me I have a three year old's birthday party to plan for tomorrow. Three! unbelievable.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Two houses
We spent a wonderful long weekend in Th*n*n hanging out at our house and tying up a few loose ends. It just feels like home when we're there in a way I can't really express. We both feel really relaxed in that house and we really just want to kick back and put a tool belt on and finish the house. The desire is strong to stay and just dive into projects that we end up doing just that the whole time we're there. The house is on the market for rent btw. I hope we find someone. My attempts at getting someone to work on the house for free rent has been a bust so far.
Here in the Paris 'burbs our house is nearly done and we've had a few visits, all very positive! The agents last week were so enthusiastic we felt really motivated to finish the last few splatters of paint we have to do. They loved all the decorating and told us they had a few clients in mind who would love the house. I felt really good because honestly the first agent who came through the house a few months back in the cheap polyester suit was really negative, almost mean. She said we should leave the house very generic because clients will want to put their own stamp on the house. She wrinkled her nose at my rustic/modern doors and said not everyone likes a red kitchen. Poo on her! The new agents were sleek and stylish, square glasses and Chanel purses. I was really nervous after the first agent had been so critical but at the same time I was curious what they'd think. They just seemed so different from her. It ended up that they loved everything and they even told me I should get paid to decorate which made Seb have to down some serious humble soup. Oh and guess which agency we're going with?
We have lots of work to do over the next eight weeks. We're back in the fire pit and we're leaving at Christmas. How insane is that? All the kids presents have to fit our suitcases. It's going to be a minimalist holiday which is just fine by me because that's become my new motto anyway--less is more.
Here in the Paris 'burbs our house is nearly done and we've had a few visits, all very positive! The agents last week were so enthusiastic we felt really motivated to finish the last few splatters of paint we have to do. They loved all the decorating and told us they had a few clients in mind who would love the house. I felt really good because honestly the first agent who came through the house a few months back in the cheap polyester suit was really negative, almost mean. She said we should leave the house very generic because clients will want to put their own stamp on the house. She wrinkled her nose at my rustic/modern doors and said not everyone likes a red kitchen. Poo on her! The new agents were sleek and stylish, square glasses and Chanel purses. I was really nervous after the first agent had been so critical but at the same time I was curious what they'd think. They just seemed so different from her. It ended up that they loved everything and they even told me I should get paid to decorate which made Seb have to down some serious humble soup. Oh and guess which agency we're going with?
We have lots of work to do over the next eight weeks. We're back in the fire pit and we're leaving at Christmas. How insane is that? All the kids presents have to fit our suitcases. It's going to be a minimalist holiday which is just fine by me because that's become my new motto anyway--less is more.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The price
We've been getting lots of interest in our house lately, three people in the last two weeks have come up to me and asked about the house. It kind of freaks me out mostly because the idea that we're leaving starts burning in my brain and suddenly I see the person in front of me IN my house and ME where will I be? Well, I guess I know I'll be somewhere but you know it's just odd to talk to a mom I've never met on the sidewalk about such things and see how much gossip travels because they know so much about me.
So what I do is I usually just tell them that we'll be using an agency and they can contact them when the time is right but then each time they PRESS and PRESS to come and see the house, just to get an idea, like yesterday. I finally had to invite the woman for coffee because she just wasn't going to give it up. She seemed nice and she has said hello to me a lot and always smiles so I didn't mind inviting her but my problem is talking about money because to be honest I don't think she can pay what we're asking. It's not that I'm sitting in judgement or anything but I know the market of the village as well as most real estate agents and I know her current house near the school--a sort of apartment, and mine is probably going to be on the rental market at a third more than hers. I feel like it's going to be a waste of time. It's also my third go in a few weeks at people asking me about the house so I know that the price is a conversation stopper. Our house seems small and unfinished from the outside because we haven't finished painting the gates yet and the front garden still need tilling and replanting,--slated for next month but looking pretty run down today. It definitely doesn't look tip top yet and we still have tools all about so it has an air of distress about it. And so lots of people are intrigued by the idea of taking on a stubbly old house and maybe getting some compensation for doing a little fixing up. And when I finally come to the uncomfortable part of saying the price they flutter and fan their face and say "well I'll have to think about it."
I suppose I'll see if she's interested or not next week over coffee. She already mentioned that her husband is a handy guy and that they'd like to avoid agency fees if at all possible so I'm prepared for the face fanning ahead of time.
And just for the record nobody can talk me out of using an agency this time. I wouldn't even rent to my own brother without an agent involved. Fool me once!
So what I do is I usually just tell them that we'll be using an agency and they can contact them when the time is right but then each time they PRESS and PRESS to come and see the house, just to get an idea, like yesterday. I finally had to invite the woman for coffee because she just wasn't going to give it up. She seemed nice and she has said hello to me a lot and always smiles so I didn't mind inviting her but my problem is talking about money because to be honest I don't think she can pay what we're asking. It's not that I'm sitting in judgement or anything but I know the market of the village as well as most real estate agents and I know her current house near the school--a sort of apartment, and mine is probably going to be on the rental market at a third more than hers. I feel like it's going to be a waste of time. It's also my third go in a few weeks at people asking me about the house so I know that the price is a conversation stopper. Our house seems small and unfinished from the outside because we haven't finished painting the gates yet and the front garden still need tilling and replanting,--slated for next month but looking pretty run down today. It definitely doesn't look tip top yet and we still have tools all about so it has an air of distress about it. And so lots of people are intrigued by the idea of taking on a stubbly old house and maybe getting some compensation for doing a little fixing up. And when I finally come to the uncomfortable part of saying the price they flutter and fan their face and say "well I'll have to think about it."
I suppose I'll see if she's interested or not next week over coffee. She already mentioned that her husband is a handy guy and that they'd like to avoid agency fees if at all possible so I'm prepared for the face fanning ahead of time.
And just for the record nobody can talk me out of using an agency this time. I wouldn't even rent to my own brother without an agent involved. Fool me once!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Dead critters
We had a great weekend with Seb's 40th birthday pretty much taking over all our free time but it was fun and we needed to take a few moments to celebrate. We were in the middle of transferring the downstairs kitchen upstairs and we got as far as moving the stove and fridge and connecting the electricty but the water still wasn't connected and our dishes and food were still in a downstairs cupboard, impossible to move because it's nearly cemented to the wall. I spent a lot of time running up and down the steps fetching everything under the sun and washing up. We were also smack in the middle of finishing up our bathroom with that sink partially installed but still leaking so it was definitely a trippy weekend--probably not the best weekend to have guests. Poor guests, but at least someone else got to witness first hand the madness of what our life has been for the past six months. It was sort of like visiting day at the refugee camp.
I always talk about my great neighbors and there are only one or two left hanging about because this is the big vacation time on France. The few that are here have been fabulous and were really helpful and if it weren't for them I think I would have keeled over dead weeks ago. They brought food over and babysat almost the whole weekend and they really boosted my morale which was a bit low when I looked around and saw what a wreck my house was...again.
My neighbor's husband found the source of the ranky smell that was floating through our house all week--a dead tomcat just on the border of our property. The kids were facinated. Little S is curious about anything dead now anyway since the mouse we found a few months ago. He asked me last night "what's inside of the cat that stinks so bad?" and then he asked "what eats the cat?" and then just on and on questions. I remember with the mouse he'd asked after we'd found it "comment on fabrique une souris maman? (how do you make a mouse?)" which is a fun question to answer. I love all these little questions. We left the mouse in a matchbox for a day or so and I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to light the candles for our dinner on the small terrace and stuck my fingers in the box without looking. Aaaagh!
A few days later the fur on the mouse was moving and when I opened the box I thought for a second "wow, he's still alive, how..." but then I realized that nature was taking its course even in the little matchbox. I decided not to show little S and we finally buried the mouse at the end of the garden.
That's all my dead animal stories for today.
Excuse me I have to go now and take apart the Playmobil hospital in Little S's room and pack it in a plastic box and I'm really dreading it. It takes about six hours and three glasses of wine to put it together again. It's HUGE and has no instructions because it was a gift from a neighbor, just a little photo from the box that I squinted over for days when I first put it together. I hate moving. Have I mentioned that before?
Hopefully I'll get the time to take some photos of the house in the next few days to show what we've done. We've done a lot. Meanwhile, au boulot!
I always talk about my great neighbors and there are only one or two left hanging about because this is the big vacation time on France. The few that are here have been fabulous and were really helpful and if it weren't for them I think I would have keeled over dead weeks ago. They brought food over and babysat almost the whole weekend and they really boosted my morale which was a bit low when I looked around and saw what a wreck my house was...again.
My neighbor's husband found the source of the ranky smell that was floating through our house all week--a dead tomcat just on the border of our property. The kids were facinated. Little S is curious about anything dead now anyway since the mouse we found a few months ago. He asked me last night "what's inside of the cat that stinks so bad?" and then he asked "what eats the cat?" and then just on and on questions. I remember with the mouse he'd asked after we'd found it "comment on fabrique une souris maman? (how do you make a mouse?)" which is a fun question to answer. I love all these little questions. We left the mouse in a matchbox for a day or so and I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to light the candles for our dinner on the small terrace and stuck my fingers in the box without looking. Aaaagh!
A few days later the fur on the mouse was moving and when I opened the box I thought for a second "wow, he's still alive, how..." but then I realized that nature was taking its course even in the little matchbox. I decided not to show little S and we finally buried the mouse at the end of the garden.
That's all my dead animal stories for today.
Excuse me I have to go now and take apart the Playmobil hospital in Little S's room and pack it in a plastic box and I'm really dreading it. It takes about six hours and three glasses of wine to put it together again. It's HUGE and has no instructions because it was a gift from a neighbor, just a little photo from the box that I squinted over for days when I first put it together. I hate moving. Have I mentioned that before?
Hopefully I'll get the time to take some photos of the house in the next few days to show what we've done. We've done a lot. Meanwhile, au boulot!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Onward
Crazy weekend, we did so much and then looked back and said « what did we actually do ? » because it didnt look like much. Seb started on the living room and he did a lot of electricity and plumbing jobs so that’s probably why it isn’t looking like much because it’s all stuff you dont see. I did more painting, hallway detailing and started the little washroom and the stairwell.
On Sunday I escaped to do a little thrifting and make a donation of three bags of toys at the same time. I bought the mirror I’ve had my eye on for about three months, finally had the motivation to ask about the price and was surprised when the guy said ten euros ! It’s a really heavy mirror too, 1930’s revival (probably mid eighties production). I also got an old metal alarm clock but like the mirror it’s a reproduction. I’d been looking for one for a while though and they’re hard to find, (especially for one euro !). Later in the day we went out to get some plumbing parts for the house at the diy store and I found some some chairs for the terrace. We actually have two terraces, one big off the kitchen and a small one off the living room each getting diferent sun at different times of the day. We kept having to steal chairs from the one terrace to use on the other and it was getting annoying to keep hauling them around. I think Seb is tired of giving me his speech of « you shouldn’t buy that because we’re leaving you know …» It doesn’t work because I have this nesting vibe that I can’t turn off even if we’re moving halfway around the world.
The mason started building our bedroom extension on Saturday and we were really impressed to see how much he got done. The bedroom will be enormous ! It threw me ino a funk though and I had a hard time on Saturday night, pms meltdown or something, because seeing that bedroom being built made me really frustrated. I’ve been waiting so long to have it and now it will be for someone else, boo-hoo poor me huh . I got over it on Sunday and I guess the shopping helped. A little retail therapy can work wonders. Like I said before though, not having a home yet in China is giving me nothing to focus on but this house and that makes it hard because this house will be gone soon , cue viscious circle.
I think I was also frustrated because of the rental negotiations we've been going through lately. We offered our house to rent to a young English couple recently we found through a friend of a friend and we agreed to entertain the idea of letting them have the place for nine months to a year, in other words a meublée (although really let’s face it I’m only leaving three things in the house so it’s only a meublée on paper). But, they were stalling,-- mainly on the price, which was kind of annoying because the price we proposed was way below market, friendly negotiation and all that. The house is all new on the inside and includes a gardener two times a month so the price was more than fair. Anyway it all reached a stalemate because of the price and I began to rethink the word of mouth type thing like you know « hey I have a friend with a dumpy house you can probably rent in France for a few hundred euros… » When I flat out asked the friend’s budget I went white because it was obvious all the talks were a waste of time. They're more likely to find a 30 sq meter studio for their price if they’re lucky. People have all these romantic notions of bohemian Paris I guess. Five hundred euros doesn’t get much even in the ‘burbs.
So I just looked at the new bedroom the other day and got all deflated because it’s going to be such a great house and hopefully we’ll find good tenants but these just weren’t the ones. The agent is going to start showing the house in late September and I’m hoping it will rent fast and to someone serious and careful. I keep thinking of my neighbor, the Kool-Aid* mom to the ados, and the day I went to her house to pick up little S. When she answered the door there was a gooey nutella sandwich glued to the door. She chuckled, rolled her eyes and left it there, « oh those boys ! » and all I can think of is my door …my pretty new door. Nooo !
On Sunday I escaped to do a little thrifting and make a donation of three bags of toys at the same time. I bought the mirror I’ve had my eye on for about three months, finally had the motivation to ask about the price and was surprised when the guy said ten euros ! It’s a really heavy mirror too, 1930’s revival (probably mid eighties production). I also got an old metal alarm clock but like the mirror it’s a reproduction. I’d been looking for one for a while though and they’re hard to find, (especially for one euro !). Later in the day we went out to get some plumbing parts for the house at the diy store and I found some some chairs for the terrace. We actually have two terraces, one big off the kitchen and a small one off the living room each getting diferent sun at different times of the day. We kept having to steal chairs from the one terrace to use on the other and it was getting annoying to keep hauling them around. I think Seb is tired of giving me his speech of « you shouldn’t buy that because we’re leaving you know …» It doesn’t work because I have this nesting vibe that I can’t turn off even if we’re moving halfway around the world.
The mason started building our bedroom extension on Saturday and we were really impressed to see how much he got done. The bedroom will be enormous ! It threw me ino a funk though and I had a hard time on Saturday night, pms meltdown or something, because seeing that bedroom being built made me really frustrated. I’ve been waiting so long to have it and now it will be for someone else, boo-hoo poor me huh . I got over it on Sunday and I guess the shopping helped. A little retail therapy can work wonders. Like I said before though, not having a home yet in China is giving me nothing to focus on but this house and that makes it hard because this house will be gone soon , cue viscious circle.
I think I was also frustrated because of the rental negotiations we've been going through lately. We offered our house to rent to a young English couple recently we found through a friend of a friend and we agreed to entertain the idea of letting them have the place for nine months to a year, in other words a meublée (although really let’s face it I’m only leaving three things in the house so it’s only a meublée on paper). But, they were stalling,-- mainly on the price, which was kind of annoying because the price we proposed was way below market, friendly negotiation and all that. The house is all new on the inside and includes a gardener two times a month so the price was more than fair. Anyway it all reached a stalemate because of the price and I began to rethink the word of mouth type thing like you know « hey I have a friend with a dumpy house you can probably rent in France for a few hundred euros… » When I flat out asked the friend’s budget I went white because it was obvious all the talks were a waste of time. They're more likely to find a 30 sq meter studio for their price if they’re lucky. People have all these romantic notions of bohemian Paris I guess. Five hundred euros doesn’t get much even in the ‘burbs.
So I just looked at the new bedroom the other day and got all deflated because it’s going to be such a great house and hopefully we’ll find good tenants but these just weren’t the ones. The agent is going to start showing the house in late September and I’m hoping it will rent fast and to someone serious and careful. I keep thinking of my neighbor, the Kool-Aid* mom to the ados, and the day I went to her house to pick up little S. When she answered the door there was a gooey nutella sandwich glued to the door. She chuckled, rolled her eyes and left it there, « oh those boys ! » and all I can think of is my door …my pretty new door. Nooo !
Friday, July 16, 2010
Hallways
I'm trying to write regularly each day because I know soon there will be a giant hole in my blogging as I struggle to get blogger unblocked in China. It's not just my blog I worry about, it's all the blogs I read on a weekly basis. There are plenty of bloggers in China so it's just a technical tweek but we won't be settled for a little while so I'll be blogging from the hotel and I know Google is blocked there. I think in that case I'll blog from Flickr for a few months.
Yesterday we had the mason here getting ready to lay the tile in our bathroom and apparently it will all be finished by tuesday, yay! Since we had to tear out our basement shower over a week ago we have been washing up in buckets outside so I'm really eager to get my bath. It's been two years now of dodgy bathroom-ness and I feel long overdue for the luxury of a real bathroom. The mason is great but my only problem is that he's always got these ideas. I chose a really modern tile for the bath and not only does he want to lay it in a staggered brick pattern, ugh, he has all these wild ideas like making little tiled boxes on the floor for hiding the pipes. I'm not sure what he's saying half the time. I just systematically negate all his ideas and I think it makes him mad but I'm not paying him to design the bathroom. He's nice and I think it bugs him not to contribute but I'm really afraid he's going to just go off and create something when I'm not looking. I just want him to lay the tile straight and not make a fuss. I want the bathroom to look sleek.
I've finished the hallway and I'm really proud of how it looks even if it is a boring white. I didn't feel like investing in the paint or taking the trouble mix it myself. The other day I glanced down at my color palette for the house and all my notes and threw it in the garbage. It was a sad moment but at the same time I guess I'll have our apartment to decorate and a new color palette to think about.
I bought a recuperated chandelier from the late 70's at a brocante, very mod looking, for lighting the hallway. The estate agent seemed to think the renters will want to do their own lighting and said they had the right to take it down and store it. She kind of crinkled her nose at it sitting on the floor so I thought maybe it wasn't in everyone's taste. And then I could just picture it sitting haphazardly on a shelf in the basement so I told Seb we'd leave the lights we already hung but this baby goes in storage. I've been bugging him to hang it so I'm disappointed. I really wanted to see the completed look but that will have to wait. I hate bare light bulbs so for now I'll put the Ikea melodi which looks nice at night all lit up and will at least make the atmosphere cosy. I really doubt the renters will take the time to change it.
Hallways in houses are really important to me. I love the formal entry way of our house even if many people have suggested we knock out the walls. We looked at a lot of 19th century houses like ours when we were house hunting and those with knocked down walls in the entryway were sad. It was as if the houses had lost all their charm. I like the pomp and circumstance of entering a mysterious hall with doors going different directions, the anticipation of where the rest of the house might lead you. My entryway decorating file is HUGE. There's so much you can do in that small inviting space.
I don't keep track of the sources for photos. Sorry for the copyright infringement.
Yesterday we had the mason here getting ready to lay the tile in our bathroom and apparently it will all be finished by tuesday, yay! Since we had to tear out our basement shower over a week ago we have been washing up in buckets outside so I'm really eager to get my bath. It's been two years now of dodgy bathroom-ness and I feel long overdue for the luxury of a real bathroom. The mason is great but my only problem is that he's always got these ideas. I chose a really modern tile for the bath and not only does he want to lay it in a staggered brick pattern, ugh, he has all these wild ideas like making little tiled boxes on the floor for hiding the pipes. I'm not sure what he's saying half the time. I just systematically negate all his ideas and I think it makes him mad but I'm not paying him to design the bathroom. He's nice and I think it bugs him not to contribute but I'm really afraid he's going to just go off and create something when I'm not looking. I just want him to lay the tile straight and not make a fuss. I want the bathroom to look sleek.
I've finished the hallway and I'm really proud of how it looks even if it is a boring white. I didn't feel like investing in the paint or taking the trouble mix it myself. The other day I glanced down at my color palette for the house and all my notes and threw it in the garbage. It was a sad moment but at the same time I guess I'll have our apartment to decorate and a new color palette to think about.
I bought a recuperated chandelier from the late 70's at a brocante, very mod looking, for lighting the hallway. The estate agent seemed to think the renters will want to do their own lighting and said they had the right to take it down and store it. She kind of crinkled her nose at it sitting on the floor so I thought maybe it wasn't in everyone's taste. And then I could just picture it sitting haphazardly on a shelf in the basement so I told Seb we'd leave the lights we already hung but this baby goes in storage. I've been bugging him to hang it so I'm disappointed. I really wanted to see the completed look but that will have to wait. I hate bare light bulbs so for now I'll put the Ikea melodi which looks nice at night all lit up and will at least make the atmosphere cosy. I really doubt the renters will take the time to change it.
Hallways in houses are really important to me. I love the formal entry way of our house even if many people have suggested we knock out the walls. We looked at a lot of 19th century houses like ours when we were house hunting and those with knocked down walls in the entryway were sad. It was as if the houses had lost all their charm. I like the pomp and circumstance of entering a mysterious hall with doors going different directions, the anticipation of where the rest of the house might lead you. My entryway decorating file is HUGE. There's so much you can do in that small inviting space.
I don't keep track of the sources for photos. Sorry for the copyright infringement.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Faith in something bigger
When I look at the long list of things we need to do to finish the house I get this void that opens up between my neck and my stomach and I lose my breath for a few minutes. Over the years I've learned to cope with anxiety a lot better and I can usually trick my mind out of worrying by pushing the things to the back of my mind. It's a game and I know how to play it.
When others see my list and the house they make comments like "there's no way you can finish all that in one month" or "you're crazy" or "the poor kids!" It's true it's a lot of things to tackle in such a short time. Even the real estate agent who was really positive when she first saw the house has begun to have her doubts now that's she's come back a few times. The other day she shook my hand like she was offering me a dead salmon and flashed her capped smile, "we'll be in touch after the work is done" I asked her if it was okay to show the house you know, on speculation now. "no, no we never do that...it scares people too much."
I think we'll finish in time somehow. I'm not sure why but in spite of the anxiety, a big attack after the agent left, I am able to believe we can get this all done. It's true on paper it doesn't all add up. There's only a month left and in all that there's also a birthday party, things to sort, a moving company for three days and kids to take of, people to say goodbye to and vet visits for the cat, oh and the trip for a few days to Haute Savoie for our working vacation.
I think whenever you're in an impossible situation like this the best thing to do is to work as hard as you possibly can all the way up to the end. If you do this, a divine sort of energy will manifest and make sure it all gets done. It's almost kinetic, like the energy of all your work makes it appear and takes over the last few details. I've done this before and it always works. The last few things always get finished somehow. Looking back later you say "how did that happen? how did we do all that?" It's really a combination of faith and hard work. Besides there's not much else we can do so we might as well believe we'll finish it all, right?
Friday, May 21, 2010
Home again
Finally back from our three weeks in the US! I have three plump suitcases sitting in the dining room, partially dug though with lots of goodies (mostly books). It was a nice visit but pretty quick even if it was three weeks, and it was pretty exhausting too. I've got the travel alone with two small kids down pat but I'm still reeling from the stress of it all. You get lots of help traveling with a baby in a stroller* but as soon as that baby hits two and can walk nobody helps you with anything. And age two is the worst for travel because of the escape factor. I think I grew eyes in the back of my head on this trip. But we made it okay both ways somehow.
While I was away we decided that we'll be going to China. Seb hasn't found another job here and he has a good job waiting for him there with the opportunity to learn a new language. Even if I'm skeptical about it all (because of Mexico and the ruptured contract) I have to admit it is exciting. Our biggest worry is Little S but I think he'll have to be changing schools, public to private, here anyway. At least we have a little fund money in the expat contract to find him a good school there and if it all goes badly then I'll consider homeschooling.
We are super busy finishing the house so we can rent it out by the end of Summer. It's starting to look really nice--yet another finished house we'll be leaving! I know how that feels so maybe I'll be a little more prepared this time for the emotional wave of handing over the keys to a home you've put all of your sweat and tears into. Like last time lots of people are asking us about renting our house on the cheap. We have offers to housesit for three years (free), one year offers, and people wanting to stuff families of five in the house (my neighbor whose boys are always catching things on fire and their house is wrecked--eek!). It's hard to say no because it's people we know who live in the village but our goal is to finish the house and rent it correctly through an agency for the market price. We can't risk everything on someone not paying the rent this time and we can't reduce the rent this time either. We want a big security deposit too because our renter in Th*n*n has really wrecked our wood floors in the three years he's been there. They'll have to be stripped when he leaves. You don't know this until you do this once because you go in very doe eyed. We've learned the hard way to cash the security deposit check right away.
I'm busy but I hope I'll be able to keep up the blogging. I took a three week break and it was nice not to think about the computer. Sometimes it's nice just to step away.
*now you can only bring one suitcase per person on most airlines so bringing a stroller counts as a piece of baggage--I had to leave the stroller with Seb at check in
While I was away we decided that we'll be going to China. Seb hasn't found another job here and he has a good job waiting for him there with the opportunity to learn a new language. Even if I'm skeptical about it all (because of Mexico and the ruptured contract) I have to admit it is exciting. Our biggest worry is Little S but I think he'll have to be changing schools, public to private, here anyway. At least we have a little fund money in the expat contract to find him a good school there and if it all goes badly then I'll consider homeschooling.
We are super busy finishing the house so we can rent it out by the end of Summer. It's starting to look really nice--yet another finished house we'll be leaving! I know how that feels so maybe I'll be a little more prepared this time for the emotional wave of handing over the keys to a home you've put all of your sweat and tears into. Like last time lots of people are asking us about renting our house on the cheap. We have offers to housesit for three years (free), one year offers, and people wanting to stuff families of five in the house (my neighbor whose boys are always catching things on fire and their house is wrecked--eek!). It's hard to say no because it's people we know who live in the village but our goal is to finish the house and rent it correctly through an agency for the market price. We can't risk everything on someone not paying the rent this time and we can't reduce the rent this time either. We want a big security deposit too because our renter in Th*n*n has really wrecked our wood floors in the three years he's been there. They'll have to be stripped when he leaves. You don't know this until you do this once because you go in very doe eyed. We've learned the hard way to cash the security deposit check right away.
I'm busy but I hope I'll be able to keep up the blogging. I took a three week break and it was nice not to think about the computer. Sometimes it's nice just to step away.
*now you can only bring one suitcase per person on most airlines so bringing a stroller counts as a piece of baggage--I had to leave the stroller with Seb at check in
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Paint and whatnot
I haven't shared many progress pictures on the house lately mostly because of the mess and the fact that it's not very attractive to take pictures with tools and paint cans lying around. So here's some sharing.
This is the kitchen, almost move in ready. I finally painted the red accent wall, but of course most of it will be blocked by pretty stainless steel appliances. Painting with red is really challenging. One sneeze and you have to start over, (for those of us who don't use masking tape that is). And the coats of paint you have to do to make it all even, ...ouch.
The radiator is sitting right in the middle of the kitchen and everyone comments on it but we're actually putting an island at the end of it so it just looks misplaced for now. It's funny though because it's the first thing everyone says when they come in, "why is that there!?"
I'm not sure if I'll paint the radiator or not. I kind of like it the way it is. We recuperated three of these radiators from a plumber we know and they'd all been painted peach except this one. I'm a little tired of scraping off paint.
(see those tools--what did I tell you, messy messy)
And still more rustica, the back of the kitchen door with all the paint off. I'll still take off more so it isn't quite so shabby and then I'll wax it. The new trim around the door will have to be tinted though. I'm leaving all the interiors of the doors in the downstairs part of the house like this au natural. The parts going out the hallway will be white. 
The dining room is off the kitchen, and this is the gray I mixed for it. It's a little darker than what you see in the photos here. It was really easy to mix up 20 litres and a lot cheaper. I think I might try to mix more paint colors for some of the other rooms because it was lots of fun getting just what I wanted.
I finally got the latex paint off of the fireplace. It was painted light green (to match the mauve carpet they'd installed no doubt). I still have to polish it and make it purty. You can't really see in this photo but there's a lot of grey in the veins of the marble, super pretty. My fingers accepted my apology for all the scraping but they're still waiting for an apology from the p.o.'s for painting over marble. What kind of idjit does that?
We also finally got the floors sanded and they're really nice, --a red pine not yellow like upstairs! The wood almost looks like oak in color. Of course mauve carpet would be MUCH prettier in this room *cough*cough*
I'll try to keep up on the progress photos. I know it's fun to see the changes.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Wallpaper clause
Painting is so relaxing and mediatative and it's the perfect activity for anyone at the crossroads of anything in their life. But then standing back you look at the wall and say to yourself "I love this room that color is perfect!" knowing full well you're probably painting it for someone else. There in a nutshell was my weekend, --lots of "ahhh!" "oohhhh".... "agh!"The decision isn't made just yet and there is always the posibility that other things will come up. Seb is still job hunting as he has been for the last six months but pickings are slim and there isn't much out there. It's not that I'm against going, it's just the international move groan issue. It's paperwork, sad goodbyes, language, internet issues, new schools, moving companies, boxes and all that scratched furniture. And it's all the lost time. It's an entire summer of preparing and then six month of settling. Afterwards it's exciting though I have to admit.
So we're waiting but meanwhile sort of preparing for the move just in case. It takes about two months for contract negotiations so that buys us time to think things over. Meanwhile I'm not buying another car just yet and bummming rides right and left which is awful, and as soon as summer comes Seb has to give back his company car so we'll both be carless which will be funny. Kind of like life has decided things for us. In the not buying a car issue people around us have figured out that our faux checkout visit was for real and so now everyone around us knows we might be leaving. I only said "psst" to one person in the village, the person who usually takes S to school in the mornings, and within two days I had the wife of our carpenter asking me what we'd decided. Within another week people started asking us about renting the house. Welcome to small town life! I have since told everyone that we've decided no because it was annoying to have people surveying our property for potential renters. Anyway we already talked to a real estate agent who told us we'd rent the house easily and for a lot more money than we even thought so no more renting to people we know--huge mistake we won't make again!
Of course like I said we have to finish the house.
The question is would you finish the house the way you had it in your head or would you leave it all white and generic? I was really disappointed with all this news because I wanted to finish the damn house and paint it. In France paint is three times the price it is in the US and England. I wanted to paint and finish the kitchen like I have it in my plans (Ikea kitchen by the way so not super expensive) but then I know that somone who rents can just repaint or *gasp* wallpaper *shudder* right over my pretty mid-century red-orange wall. Oh well, I dove in and painted it anyway.
I keep having flashbacks to when my mil moved in to their house a few years ago and said they hated the ugly peach vinyl wallpaper. While we were in Mexico they told us they'd changed it and we were thinking "good they finally updated it" but then when we finally saw it, it was replaced with this loverly dark blue vinyl wallpaper with a flower basket border at the top. And they were standing there all proud saying "oh thank go we got rid of that awful peach!" When I was painting yesterday the visions of that wallpaper kept floating back in my mind.
Is it possible to put a no wallpaper clause in a renters contract? This is the one thing that will keep me up at night worrying if we leave.
(btw our renter in the other house painted huge black chinese letters all over the kitchen walls--no idea why--yes I know the irony of it, anyway he also has a buddha altar and he installed candle holders in the wall, screwed in sconces right over the cat dish...I thought about that too when I was painting yesterday with my expensive French paint)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Travels
It seems like I have no time to blog lately!! Agh! Each time I think about sitting down I know I'll end up spending thirty minutes writing and it just seems so overwhelming that I don't do it and then look my blog ends up dead and I write nothing. But it's my blogiversary this month, five years! yay!! and so I figured I should take more time to write because I really enjoy having my archives and looking back on what I've done these past years. My kid's lives are in these pages and it's incredible to be able to look back and see them so small and me so unsure or scared or amazed or whatever I was feeling at the time.
I'm really busy lately and hey you'd think a poor mamie in a flowered petticoat without a car would have nothing to do all day but look at seed catalogs, but I've been busy planning trips. In a few weeks I'm traveling with Seb to Shanghai for a week so take THAT miss mamie flowercoat. We're leaving the kids with the in-laws and heading off child free for a week. When I told Little S he looked really disappointed and said "but you just had a weekend en amoureux!! not again!" because he was thinking about last month when we left him for three days to celebrate our anniversary. I'm not feeling the least bit guilty though. Seb has clients to see during the day and I have the city to explore and then at night we can have dinner together. I'm really excited to see China and be in a totally different world for a bit.
I've also planned a trip home to see the family in Florida in Spring. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I got everything booked, whew. I think I hold my breath between visits and somehow having a date set for a visit makes me relaxed. It's much harder now to plan visits with two kids and that always weighs heavy in the back of my mind.
I finally got out to do some thrifting the other day even though it was with kids and my neighbor. It was fun for me but my neighbor was in very uncomfortable territory so it was kind of funny. It isn't really her passion to go thrifting and it was painfully obvious she wanted to leave. I don't think she's going to be my new thrifting buddy. I've been itching to go a lot more because I'm getting rid of all the old furniture in the house. It's really not so much wanting to change out of superstition but from a desire to change the stale energy in the house. The table in the dining room for example has been in the same spot for YEARS I'm certain, probably fifty years. I still use it and I didn't even move it from that spot. Yeah maybe I cleaned it but it's still there rotting in the same spot where someone else ate there a lot longer than we have. I want to shake things up and change all that stale energy. Besides I feel my taste has really changed over the past two years so I'd like to make a fresh start and modernize the old house a bit. I'm still putting old pieces in our house but at least I've chosen them myself and put them in new places.
I'll share my thrifted finds in another post when I have time to upload photos.
I'm really busy lately and hey you'd think a poor mamie in a flowered petticoat without a car would have nothing to do all day but look at seed catalogs, but I've been busy planning trips. In a few weeks I'm traveling with Seb to Shanghai for a week so take THAT miss mamie flowercoat. We're leaving the kids with the in-laws and heading off child free for a week. When I told Little S he looked really disappointed and said "but you just had a weekend en amoureux!! not again!" because he was thinking about last month when we left him for three days to celebrate our anniversary. I'm not feeling the least bit guilty though. Seb has clients to see during the day and I have the city to explore and then at night we can have dinner together. I'm really excited to see China and be in a totally different world for a bit.
I've also planned a trip home to see the family in Florida in Spring. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I got everything booked, whew. I think I hold my breath between visits and somehow having a date set for a visit makes me relaxed. It's much harder now to plan visits with two kids and that always weighs heavy in the back of my mind.
I finally got out to do some thrifting the other day even though it was with kids and my neighbor. It was fun for me but my neighbor was in very uncomfortable territory so it was kind of funny. It isn't really her passion to go thrifting and it was painfully obvious she wanted to leave. I don't think she's going to be my new thrifting buddy. I've been itching to go a lot more because I'm getting rid of all the old furniture in the house. It's really not so much wanting to change out of superstition but from a desire to change the stale energy in the house. The table in the dining room for example has been in the same spot for YEARS I'm certain, probably fifty years. I still use it and I didn't even move it from that spot. Yeah maybe I cleaned it but it's still there rotting in the same spot where someone else ate there a lot longer than we have. I want to shake things up and change all that stale energy. Besides I feel my taste has really changed over the past two years so I'd like to make a fresh start and modernize the old house a bit. I'm still putting old pieces in our house but at least I've chosen them myself and put them in new places.
I'll share my thrifted finds in another post when I have time to upload photos.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Down to business
Life has been speedy lately which is why I haven't had much time to blog. You know sometimes life just gets like that. I'd like to keep track of what's going on so even if I don't have time I still want to write it all on my blog even if it's scattered. I'm sorry if this makes no sense sometimes or it's boring.
Little S is seeing a kid psychiatrist in Paris and we've only had one session. She's really good and she's great with children. He opened right up to her which really surprised us because he's Clint Eastwood in front of most adults, strong and silent. He's never open with someone like that. I haven't written much about what's going on but a school psychologist suggested her and yes he does seem to have a problem but we aren't sure what it is yet so the search continues. I'm still hunting around for a private school and next month I'm visiting two of them, both Steiner schools. I like Steiner and I've been trying to read through his works for the past year now, emphasis on trying because some of it's heavy and my brain is a bit mushy after two kids. When we first started looking that's what I focused on, finding a Steiner school, that or a school based on Reggio Emilia which would be my number one choice. The only Steiner school near us is 45 minutes away and in Paris that can mean three hours if you hit a traffic jam, but I'm interested in seeing the school anyway just to compare it to others. It's one of the few that goes all the way through lycée.
I'm also job hunting, or I guess career hunting. I found a training I like that I've been thinking about for a while now. It keeps popping back up in my thoughts and in things I read. It's basically falling in my lap screaming "do this!". I've been trying to start other things but nothing feels right except this. This feels really right but the program sounds really difficult and I'm not sure if I'd get accepted. Right now it's all still in the planning stage so I won't talk too much about it because I'm superstitious like that.
I'm looking for a car too which is a little difficult because I haven't got a car to go see cars. Seb usually gets home late so we only have the weekend to look. I'm also waiting on the insurance money. I got a really good deal on my old car when I bought it and I lost a lot in the insurance adjustment. It seems prices have gone up since then which is really frustrating because I have less to work with. I'm eager to get wheels again though. I feel like an old mamie in a flowered housecoat who stays in with her cat all day. A funny thing is I have it in my head that I'll get a black car and I'm really set on that. I think it's my secret desire to be a spy and combat car theives. Either that or I'll be Knight Rider and have a car that can't be stolen!
The big news is that our window company is going out of business. The owner called us yesterday at 7am asking for money. We've left him over seventeen messages and he just suddenly decides to call us back out of the blue. Seb got angry and asked why he'd never called us until now and the guy said "listen I don't have any installers because my guys are being investigated for three different robberies so I've fired them..." Seb told him about our car being stolen and he acted surprised. I have no idea why he felt the need to tell us about his guys but I don't trust him. I'm pretty sure he was involved somehow in our theft because the car was obviously at the company warehouse for a while. Seb hung up and called the main branch of the window company who told us not to give them any money because they were no longer associated with them and the business is going under fast which is why he probably called us for money. He's desperate. We called the gendarmerie and told them "hey you know those guys we told you stole our car? Well you have a few files on them already (and if you'd done your job you'd probably know that!)" They said it was too late and that our case was already closed. Then we went to the police and filed a complaint against the window company and told them the whole story. The police were very nice and took our information starting from the beginning. The were really angry on our behalf for the way the gendarmerie treated our case. Evidently there's a big rivalry between the police and the gendarmerie. The police think the gendarmerie is completely incompetent, surprise, surprise. What a bunch of bumbling idiots. They'd told us after three visits that we were being pests and there were much more important cases for them than our stolen car. I'd always wondered why French people make fun of the gendarmerie and act so sarcastic with them. Each time we've called or talked to someone they seem really young, 20 years old or so, and they always have bad vocabulary. I remember one sympathetic gendarme girl telling Seb "mais putain oui, ça pue de la merde votre histoire la, franchement putain!" or roughly "yep that sounds like they're guilty, wow" but sprinkled with a truckdriver's vocabulary and not very evolved. They seem to be run by a bunch of teenagers, or at least in our precinct they are. The police were much sharper and now I have an official complaint filed against the company.
I feel a like I let the wolf play in the sheeps pen. I can't believe I was naieve enough to leave these con artists in my house alone at least a dozen times. One of the guys had such a sweet face and apparently he's the one who has the huge rap sheet. I really resent the idea that I can't trust anyone at face value anymore. I hate that feeling.
Little S is seeing a kid psychiatrist in Paris and we've only had one session. She's really good and she's great with children. He opened right up to her which really surprised us because he's Clint Eastwood in front of most adults, strong and silent. He's never open with someone like that. I haven't written much about what's going on but a school psychologist suggested her and yes he does seem to have a problem but we aren't sure what it is yet so the search continues. I'm still hunting around for a private school and next month I'm visiting two of them, both Steiner schools. I like Steiner and I've been trying to read through his works for the past year now, emphasis on trying because some of it's heavy and my brain is a bit mushy after two kids. When we first started looking that's what I focused on, finding a Steiner school, that or a school based on Reggio Emilia which would be my number one choice. The only Steiner school near us is 45 minutes away and in Paris that can mean three hours if you hit a traffic jam, but I'm interested in seeing the school anyway just to compare it to others. It's one of the few that goes all the way through lycée.
I'm also job hunting, or I guess career hunting. I found a training I like that I've been thinking about for a while now. It keeps popping back up in my thoughts and in things I read. It's basically falling in my lap screaming "do this!". I've been trying to start other things but nothing feels right except this. This feels really right but the program sounds really difficult and I'm not sure if I'd get accepted. Right now it's all still in the planning stage so I won't talk too much about it because I'm superstitious like that.
I'm looking for a car too which is a little difficult because I haven't got a car to go see cars. Seb usually gets home late so we only have the weekend to look. I'm also waiting on the insurance money. I got a really good deal on my old car when I bought it and I lost a lot in the insurance adjustment. It seems prices have gone up since then which is really frustrating because I have less to work with. I'm eager to get wheels again though. I feel like an old mamie in a flowered housecoat who stays in with her cat all day. A funny thing is I have it in my head that I'll get a black car and I'm really set on that. I think it's my secret desire to be a spy and combat car theives. Either that or I'll be Knight Rider and have a car that can't be stolen!
The big news is that our window company is going out of business. The owner called us yesterday at 7am asking for money. We've left him over seventeen messages and he just suddenly decides to call us back out of the blue. Seb got angry and asked why he'd never called us until now and the guy said "listen I don't have any installers because my guys are being investigated for three different robberies so I've fired them..." Seb told him about our car being stolen and he acted surprised. I have no idea why he felt the need to tell us about his guys but I don't trust him. I'm pretty sure he was involved somehow in our theft because the car was obviously at the company warehouse for a while. Seb hung up and called the main branch of the window company who told us not to give them any money because they were no longer associated with them and the business is going under fast which is why he probably called us for money. He's desperate. We called the gendarmerie and told them "hey you know those guys we told you stole our car? Well you have a few files on them already (and if you'd done your job you'd probably know that!)" They said it was too late and that our case was already closed. Then we went to the police and filed a complaint against the window company and told them the whole story. The police were very nice and took our information starting from the beginning. The were really angry on our behalf for the way the gendarmerie treated our case. Evidently there's a big rivalry between the police and the gendarmerie. The police think the gendarmerie is completely incompetent, surprise, surprise. What a bunch of bumbling idiots. They'd told us after three visits that we were being pests and there were much more important cases for them than our stolen car. I'd always wondered why French people make fun of the gendarmerie and act so sarcastic with them. Each time we've called or talked to someone they seem really young, 20 years old or so, and they always have bad vocabulary. I remember one sympathetic gendarme girl telling Seb "mais putain oui, ça pue de la merde votre histoire la, franchement putain!" or roughly "yep that sounds like they're guilty, wow" but sprinkled with a truckdriver's vocabulary and not very evolved. They seem to be run by a bunch of teenagers, or at least in our precinct they are. The police were much sharper and now I have an official complaint filed against the company.
I feel a like I let the wolf play in the sheeps pen. I can't believe I was naieve enough to leave these con artists in my house alone at least a dozen times. One of the guys had such a sweet face and apparently he's the one who has the huge rap sheet. I really resent the idea that I can't trust anyone at face value anymore. I hate that feeling.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Nothing major
No major accidents. This week has been pretty calm. whew.
In other news,
Well, Charlotte we can say has offically stopped breastfeeding. I think the last time was just around New Years Day. Right before this in November she went through a period where she cried and screamed and she was constantly clinging to me. She fed about sixteen times a day. I was at my wits end. I swore she'd never want to stop and I got a little depressed to be perfectly honest, really depressed. I think they get clingy when they sense it's the end (even if it's them who decides to stop). But now suddenly she's stopped asking and I've stopped offering. We're both sort of okay with that. It's always sad to let go but a lot of it's hormonal. I'm really pleased with getting so far when the beginning was so AWFUL, two years and two months! Go "low supply" me (and take that Miss Mexico Doctor who told me I had no milk!)
I've been really lazy with art journaling but I just haven't had time to draw at night and we don't have a light in the bedroom (don't ask). I've been getting back into photography lately. I just did a photo session for a pregnant friend and she loved it so much that we did a second session with her and the kids. I had a million ideas so it was really fun for me. The photos I did of her were very arty and avant garde. The kids ones were a bit more fun, laughing and poking fun of their mom. It was really challenging working with all that -- big belly mama, bad lighting and two kids. The pictures came out good though and she's shown them to everyone. I wish I could share them here but they're so personal. Anyway, now I have two or three people who've asked me to do sessions with their kids. I'm really excited because I love these kind of projects and my kids are bored with all my photo sessions. Fresh blood! Yay!
We hired our neighbor. Remember I said a while back "clearly one doesn't hire the neighbor" ? Well it was stupid to say that because he's the nicest person I've ever met and I think from what I've seen he's an amazing craftsman. I was just worried because we've had such horrible luck with workmen and you know if he's a neighbor it's kind of sticky. Hopefully he's our good luck charm.
Little S's room is almost finished and we're getting him some new furniture. I've found him an awesome mid century teak bed and I'm redoing his 1950's nightstand in the same tone. It's a little stylish for a kid's bedroom but I like it. I want to paint his accent wall in black (chalkboard paint!) but Seb is my roadblock, "you can't paint a kid's room BLACK!" He has to concede. It's going to look great and anyway it's only one wall.
Before I forget I have to share a link to a new favorite blog, with lots of fabulous ideas for mid century modern fans. I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of this style and it's pretty easy to collect nice pieces thrifting which is what I love to do.
In other news,
Well, Charlotte we can say has offically stopped breastfeeding. I think the last time was just around New Years Day. Right before this in November she went through a period where she cried and screamed and she was constantly clinging to me. She fed about sixteen times a day. I was at my wits end. I swore she'd never want to stop and I got a little depressed to be perfectly honest, really depressed. I think they get clingy when they sense it's the end (even if it's them who decides to stop). But now suddenly she's stopped asking and I've stopped offering. We're both sort of okay with that. It's always sad to let go but a lot of it's hormonal. I'm really pleased with getting so far when the beginning was so AWFUL, two years and two months! Go "low supply" me (and take that Miss Mexico Doctor who told me I had no milk!)
I've been really lazy with art journaling but I just haven't had time to draw at night and we don't have a light in the bedroom (don't ask). I've been getting back into photography lately. I just did a photo session for a pregnant friend and she loved it so much that we did a second session with her and the kids. I had a million ideas so it was really fun for me. The photos I did of her were very arty and avant garde. The kids ones were a bit more fun, laughing and poking fun of their mom. It was really challenging working with all that -- big belly mama, bad lighting and two kids. The pictures came out good though and she's shown them to everyone. I wish I could share them here but they're so personal. Anyway, now I have two or three people who've asked me to do sessions with their kids. I'm really excited because I love these kind of projects and my kids are bored with all my photo sessions. Fresh blood! Yay!
We hired our neighbor. Remember I said a while back "clearly one doesn't hire the neighbor" ? Well it was stupid to say that because he's the nicest person I've ever met and I think from what I've seen he's an amazing craftsman. I was just worried because we've had such horrible luck with workmen and you know if he's a neighbor it's kind of sticky. Hopefully he's our good luck charm.
Little S's room is almost finished and we're getting him some new furniture. I've found him an awesome mid century teak bed and I'm redoing his 1950's nightstand in the same tone. It's a little stylish for a kid's bedroom but I like it. I want to paint his accent wall in black (chalkboard paint!) but Seb is my roadblock, "you can't paint a kid's room BLACK!" He has to concede. It's going to look great and anyway it's only one wall.
Before I forget I have to share a link to a new favorite blog, with lots of fabulous ideas for mid century modern fans. I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of this style and it's pretty easy to collect nice pieces thrifting which is what I love to do.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Changing energy
Last Friday I painted for six hours straight, nearly all day long, and then with ceiling paint plastered in my bangs I got a call from Seb. "They don't want to fix your car. There's some kind of problem with water in the engine or something." My heart sunk. I was really down. I love my car, or maybe I should say loved my car. The car looked like it was in good shape when I saw it after the police found it but in fact they did something to the motor or maybe it was the putting out of the fire. I'll get some recompensation, losing a little money of course, but still I loved my car. I was feeling really sad and I didn't want to go to my soirée fille, my little monthly outing with my neighbors where we women get together without the kids or husbands. I didn't feel like getting dressed up and doing my hair and so I called my friend Myla and begged off but she insisted. She called me back twice and said "get out of the damn house! change l'air un peu!" I think I called the wrong person to beg off because she's always so positive and energetic.At the soirée after about an hour of doing the bonne année bise ten times, (now you understand why I begged off going) the subject of our house came up and Seb's latest accident, the piece of old wood lodged in his finger, the other index finger. He had to have another operation, his second in two weeks, (the first being when he sliced himself with a drywall cutter at Christmas) to get rid of the infection that swelled his finger like a giant sausage, and so now he looks like a lobster with both pinchers on either hand wrapped in huge bandages. He can't work in the house for the next six weeks. "There isn't something wrong with your house?" one neighbor asked. "It seems like there's a problem somewhere" Everyone shook their head in agreement and then a few people launched into stories about "bad houses" and I stayed relatively quiet. The room seemed divided between believers and non so I didn't feel like telling everyone about my saga of the magnetisuer from the previous week. Then the most conservative mom I know leaned in towards me. "There's someone I think you have to see." I felt comfortable and shared a very abbreviated version of our magnetiseur story with her and we left it at that. The next morning I shared the story with Seb and told him how shocked I was that Véronique of all people told me that she knew someone and that she'd had problems in her house. Then Seb went off to run a banking errand in the next village and rounding a corner he ran right into Véronique who was also running errands. "Did Christine tell you?" she asked. She gave Seb the card of her guy and he came out to meet us that same day and made a plan to come the following week to clean our house.
Yesterday was the big day. We had the property cleansed and Dominique told us his views on the house after doing his ritual cleansing. When he first came he went straight in the front room and said "this room" and then in the basement kitchen "and this one" He asked if the previous owner had died in the house and even though I told him no he said she has a really strong hold on the property and "it's almost like she's jealous of you and maybe she's a little angry that you're in her house." When he first came he'd gone in the old mamies' bedroom without knowing, the room we threw all the furniture out of and that's the room he'd marked as having the most energy problems. The basement kitchen has all her old furniture, the table, the fridge the cupboards and the bowls and pitchers I'd kept so that's the only reason I'd think he'd have for targeting that room. He walked through the house burning incense and sprinkling holy water and doing his cleansing rituals. The house got really, really cold like last week before the heat got turned on. It was weird. Then when he'd finished he did us. He was using a crystal dangling it over my head and I felt this electromagnetic energy bolting through my body. It was so odd. I get the same sensation when I stand too close to a microwave because I'm really sensitive to them and I have to stay about a foot away or I get dizzy. Seb who is even more skeptical than me felt the same thing when he did him. The other thing was that I started sweating like a long distance runner as soon as he started, and it was almost embarrassing because it was dripping down my arms like someone turned on a faucet. I wasn't nervous at all, more worried that I'd start giggling so it was completely strange.
After his walk through we shared with Dominique what the other man told us but he wasn't so sure about it. He said it's not really a curse or anything from someone real (to be fair the other guy told us he'd really like a photo of the house to know who it was and he'd asked us to mail one and he'd write us back). Dominique said he did feel a lot of jealousy but it was from the previous owner's energy and there was a real feeling of propriety and a feeling of this house is MINE, something he said he felt like when he walked in and something I feel too. How can you not feel this when you walk into the house and it's been a museum frozen in time. I don't ever really feel like it's our house, or at least I haven't up to now. He asked when we started big renovations and when we said May he said "and that's when all your problems started right?" which we had to agree because it was in June that Seb "got blowed up" (as Little S says) and it so happens that he was burning the debris from the house, the walls we'd torn out and some of the broken furniture, go figure.
So that's about it--the house's energy is neutralized and so are we. We'll see how our luck changes, if we have to leave or not.* Even if you don't believe in this sort of thing and you think it's kooky at least you could latch on to the idea that the feeling of constantly having bad luck might disappear for us and that will make our own negative feelings go away.
(Seb has been dabbling with taking an expat offer at his job but it's a take it or 'leave the company' offer so we may not have the choice! I can't really blog about it though *zipping lip* but we feel pushed out and it's just more weird stuff that's been going on)
Monday, January 04, 2010
Spiteful
I seem to remember this from a theiving episode a long time ago, first you notice something big missing like a car for example and then slowly other things pop up missing. It seems our window friends weren't just installing windows but pocketing DVDs and jewelry the whole while. All the things I've been noticing missing were right near the windows that they installed. Seb has been really skeptical about it being them but even he couldn't ignore that it was someone pretty spiteful who tore out a whole wall of electrical cables leading from the kitchen to the upstairs, right next to the new kitchen window where my spare keys were last seen.
I'm really angry, mostly at myself for trusting them in my house and being so stupid as to let them near my things alone. How could I be so dumb?
They STILL have to come back and finish their work because they have the iron grill work on our windows in their depot and they owe us a pricey window that we know if we jump into litigation we will never get. I just want them out of our house and out of our lives.
I'm really angry, mostly at myself for trusting them in my house and being so stupid as to let them near my things alone. How could I be so dumb?
They STILL have to come back and finish their work because they have the iron grill work on our windows in their depot and they owe us a pricey window that we know if we jump into litigation we will never get. I just want them out of our house and out of our lives.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Rasputin
I realized when I sat down to the computer tonight that I accidentally posted the draft I was working on about my car getting found. I had a really hard time writing about it, there's just so many details and so much emotion that it was a post in progress and I guess I hit send at one point and it ended up "out there" before I was done. Sorry if you left a comment. I did see the comments in my mailbox so thank you.
And now I can't find the post in my drafts so I don't know where it is. A lot of odd things like this are happening lately. I don't know what's up with my life these days. Honestly I'm starting to wonder. Anyway for a recap if you didn't get my post in your reader, --my car was found by the police and it ended up it was just next to the window installer's stock warehouse in a store parking lot, 150 meters away. People in the store watched in the parking lot as the guys set fire to the car in broad daylight and then ran off. They all gave some kind of vague description but the interesting point was that they all said that guys were wearing blue uniforms and that's pretty much what these window guys wear so it was odd. Another person said they saw them come from the warehouse parking lot pulling my car. They were seen by lots of people tugging my (no doubt) out of gas car along, chug, chug, chug.
The window guys have been giving us problems since forever and I haven't blogged about it because it wasn't something we wanted to dwell on. To be as brief as possible they cashed a check held in escrow, a biggie! and then they never, ever, ever ordered our windows. Three months later we still kept getting the phone tag runaround and we couldn't start any other work until the windows were in so out of desperation Seb cornered the commercial rep at the sales office one afternoon and the guy said "look I'm quitting tomorrow-- these guys are nuts and you'll never get your windows or your deposit money unless you sue them. They haven't paid me in weeks!" then he gave him the address of the warehouse where he said his boss was living because of personal problems, go figure. Sure enough Seb found the guy half asleep in his underwear in the warehouse and asked when we could get our windows. The guy blamed all the delays on the corporate headquarters so Seb, ever the detective called the hq in Alsace and found out that they had no idea who we were and our windows were never ordered. The hq ordered our windows but we still had to deal with our local sales branch.
So anyway when the window installers came they had HUGE attitudes and I've been dealing with them for weeks now. They also installed the wrong window upstairs, completely nuts and a whole other problem that I blogged a little about on my Flickr page. And so two weeks ago when I innocently asked Rasputin* the head installer about a few problems with the shutters he suddenly just blew up at me and I was completely shocked. It was like he had all this pent up rage and he was there just inches from my face screaming. He was saying things like "people like you with your old houses think you can have new windows that work correctly? Oh come on lady!" and I couldn't get a word in because he was just an explosion of anger. And I said to myself "oh wow he's probably the boss's brother or something."
I was pretty sure from the start that it was them for a few obvious reasons. My spare keys, or OUR spare keys were by the door he was working on that day he blew up at me. Seb is missing his spare keys too now. They knew my school pickup hours all too well because I'd always say it before I'd run out because I'm polite like that and I was worried they might need something while I ran out,--I'm such a naieve country hick. I see that now. And they knew I'd go in the basement for snack time and they knew the angle of the windows and what you could and couldn't see, because from the outside it looks like the people inside can see well but Rasputin installed those windows so he knew what parts of the driveway you can't see.
And he kicked my cat one day. I saw him do it. People who kick cats are generally criminal minded. So there.
The police aren't all that interested in our story and they said if there's another incident they'll look into it, *yawn*. Meanwhile my car is torched and impounded and they stole my kids Christmas gifts and set fire to my son's car seat. They likely have the keys to our house too because they installed our doors. They also very likely have Seb's car keys too, and get this they have to come back and work in our house at least three more times. I'm a little freaked out.
I can't figure out why we keep having such bad luck lately. It's like we have a black cloud following us.
*(he looks exactly like Rasputin, same beard and everything, and he has a sort of Polish-Russian name)
And now I can't find the post in my drafts so I don't know where it is. A lot of odd things like this are happening lately. I don't know what's up with my life these days. Honestly I'm starting to wonder. Anyway for a recap if you didn't get my post in your reader, --my car was found by the police and it ended up it was just next to the window installer's stock warehouse in a store parking lot, 150 meters away. People in the store watched in the parking lot as the guys set fire to the car in broad daylight and then ran off. They all gave some kind of vague description but the interesting point was that they all said that guys were wearing blue uniforms and that's pretty much what these window guys wear so it was odd. Another person said they saw them come from the warehouse parking lot pulling my car. They were seen by lots of people tugging my (no doubt) out of gas car along, chug, chug, chug.
The window guys have been giving us problems since forever and I haven't blogged about it because it wasn't something we wanted to dwell on. To be as brief as possible they cashed a check held in escrow, a biggie! and then they never, ever, ever ordered our windows. Three months later we still kept getting the phone tag runaround and we couldn't start any other work until the windows were in so out of desperation Seb cornered the commercial rep at the sales office one afternoon and the guy said "look I'm quitting tomorrow-- these guys are nuts and you'll never get your windows or your deposit money unless you sue them. They haven't paid me in weeks!" then he gave him the address of the warehouse where he said his boss was living because of personal problems, go figure. Sure enough Seb found the guy half asleep in his underwear in the warehouse and asked when we could get our windows. The guy blamed all the delays on the corporate headquarters so Seb, ever the detective called the hq in Alsace and found out that they had no idea who we were and our windows were never ordered. The hq ordered our windows but we still had to deal with our local sales branch.
So anyway when the window installers came they had HUGE attitudes and I've been dealing with them for weeks now. They also installed the wrong window upstairs, completely nuts and a whole other problem that I blogged a little about on my Flickr page. And so two weeks ago when I innocently asked Rasputin* the head installer about a few problems with the shutters he suddenly just blew up at me and I was completely shocked. It was like he had all this pent up rage and he was there just inches from my face screaming. He was saying things like "people like you with your old houses think you can have new windows that work correctly? Oh come on lady!" and I couldn't get a word in because he was just an explosion of anger. And I said to myself "oh wow he's probably the boss's brother or something."
I was pretty sure from the start that it was them for a few obvious reasons. My spare keys, or OUR spare keys were by the door he was working on that day he blew up at me. Seb is missing his spare keys too now. They knew my school pickup hours all too well because I'd always say it before I'd run out because I'm polite like that and I was worried they might need something while I ran out,--I'm such a naieve country hick. I see that now. And they knew I'd go in the basement for snack time and they knew the angle of the windows and what you could and couldn't see, because from the outside it looks like the people inside can see well but Rasputin installed those windows so he knew what parts of the driveway you can't see.
And he kicked my cat one day. I saw him do it. People who kick cats are generally criminal minded. So there.
The police aren't all that interested in our story and they said if there's another incident they'll look into it, *yawn*. Meanwhile my car is torched and impounded and they stole my kids Christmas gifts and set fire to my son's car seat. They likely have the keys to our house too because they installed our doors. They also very likely have Seb's car keys too, and get this they have to come back and work in our house at least three more times. I'm a little freaked out.
I can't figure out why we keep having such bad luck lately. It's like we have a black cloud following us.
*(he looks exactly like Rasputin, same beard and everything, and he has a sort of Polish-Russian name)
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
The new hallway tile
The tile in the hallway has been finished for a few weeks now and the new door was installed just afterwards but we had so much debris piled up it was hard to take a decent picture.
So here's the before... (with the wrought iron window grills removed for painting)
...and the after! (you can't see the iron grills very well in this photo but they're back in)
I actually liked the old entry tile but since the floors were sagging it made it hard to properly install the new door so I finally relented as long as we got something that looked like it might have always been in the house. The biggest reward is when people ask "did you clean the old floors or something?" Yay it's what I had hoped, nothing too shocking and keeping in the style of the house.
Now we just have to redo the baseboards and paint.
Another project that's finished is the living room floor. We chose a prefinished oak, a little light for my taste but we LOVE our new floors. I'll do a better picture next week when I can show off my Christmas tree at the same time. Right now the tree lights aren't working and it's bugging me. For now here's a sneak peek of where the hall tile joins the living room.
So here's the before... (with the wrought iron window grills removed for painting)
...and the after! (you can't see the iron grills very well in this photo but they're back in)
I actually liked the old entry tile but since the floors were sagging it made it hard to properly install the new door so I finally relented as long as we got something that looked like it might have always been in the house. The biggest reward is when people ask "did you clean the old floors or something?" Yay it's what I had hoped, nothing too shocking and keeping in the style of the house.
Now we just have to redo the baseboards and paint.
Another project that's finished is the living room floor. We chose a prefinished oak, a little light for my taste but we LOVE our new floors. I'll do a better picture next week when I can show off my Christmas tree at the same time. Right now the tree lights aren't working and it's bugging me. For now here's a sneak peek of where the hall tile joins the living room.
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